***The fee for this seminar is per site, not per person. Invite your colleagues to join you and it won't cost a penny more.

Plus, the seminar comes with a no-risk guarantee. If you're not satisfied, for any reason, we'll gladly refund your payment.***

Teaching an online course may seem similar to teaching a face-to-face course, but there are major pedagogical challenges that must be addressed in order to maximize learning in the online classroom.

Although the basics of quality instruction remain fairly consistent, online courses vary dramatically in how students interact with course content, faculty-student collaboration, assessment options, feedback alternatives, and the importance of providing structure. To name just a few.

Once you have a thorough understanding of the major differences between these two learning environments, you are able to capitalize on the best aspects of online instruction to facilitate deeper student learning.

Faculty Focus invites you to attend Teaching Online vs. F2F: 15 Differences That Affect Learning, a live video seminar coming September 16. During the seminar, Dr. Ike Shibley will spell out the key distinctions between these two forms of instruction.

This online video seminar will cover:• 15 important differences between online and face-to-face instruction• The advantages of online teaching compared to F2F methods• Effective teaching practices that align with online instruction• Applying learner-centered teaching to online courses• Productive aspects of online instruction to help guide course design• Composing a first draft for an online course syllabus• Appropriate online assignments, grading, and collaboration exercises• Creating possible assessment instruments to measure student learning• Why assessment is actually easier in an online courseWhether you’re new to online teaching, or have been doing it for years, this seminar will make you rethink what’s possible in the online classroom.

This seminar features one of Magna’s most popular and engaging presenters, Dr. Ike Shibley, an associate professor of chemistry at Penn State-Berks. An award-winning teacher with a pedagogical research focus on finding the most productive ways to enhance student learning, Dr. Shibley brings unique insight into classroom climate, student learning and motivation. He will answer your questions during the dedicated Q&A portion of the seminar.

A wide variety of mediating factors contribute to a student's academic success and achievement during the first year of college. Research suggests that there are patterned variables that influence success, whereas practitioners argue that academic success for students is highly idiosyncratic and individualized. Colleges and Universities are challenged then to design support programs with best practices that not only reflect research in higher education, but also to provide services that are attentive to individual needs.

This session examines Bryant University's innovative approach to supporting students during their first year and beyond. The University has designed a support system intentionally integrating three functional areas of the institution: Advising, The First-Year Experience, and Learning Assistance. The design of the support system lays the "foundation" for academic success and retention during the first year through graduation. The purpose of the presentation is to provide attendees with the information and tools to create a similar integrated model at their institutions.

The purpose of the presentation is to provide attendees with the information and tools to create a similar integrated model at their institutions.

Participants will learn about:how technology in advising is used to augment advisees' connection to the University's advising system how advisee assignments are intentionally linked with the first-year experience course how the first-year experience course's innovative curriculum is designed to foster student participation in learning assistance programming and advising services how the program is assessed for continuous improvement efforts longitudinal data that demonstrates how the model has functioned to decrease probation and dismissal numbers. Participants will be provided with a packet including curriculum materials from the First-Year Experience course, and practical advice will be offered for implementation ideas. Successes and challenges will be explored. Directors Deans Administrators responsible for advising First Year Experience coordinators Faculty who teach FYE coursesLearning assistance staff Anyone involved in student success and retentionLaurie L. Hazard holds an Ed.M. in Counseling and an Ed.D. in Curriculum and Teaching from Boston University. Laurie's experience with academic support began as a graduate student at Boston University and later as a reading and writing specialist in an innovative, team structured learning assistance program at Boston University. For two years, Laurie served as the Director of Academic Support Services at Becker College, a department which housed advising services for at-risk students, learning assistance programs, and tutoring services. Laurie has been the Director of the Academic Center for Excellence and Writing Center at Bryant University for the last nine years. Laurie has been teaching and designing curricula for first-year experience and study skills courses for the last seventeen years. She has taught courses in college reading and study skills, liberal arts seminars, psychology, personality psychology, abnormal psychology, and social psychology. Her area of expertise is the personality traits and attitudes of college students that influence academic achievement and mediate the utilization of newly learned study strategies. Laurie is a New England Peer Tutor Association Board member and has hosted their Annual Forum at her institution. She has presented at national conferences such as the First Year Experience and Students in Transition, the Conference on College Composition and the College Reading and Learning Association. Laurie co-authored a text entitled Foundations for Learning designed for study skills and first-year experience courses. Laurie has done extensive work writing about and assessing the effectiveness of learning assistance programs and FYE courses. She has been a Guest Editorial Board member for the Learning Assistance Review. Publications by Laurie and her co-author include: Exploring the Evidence, Volume III: Reporting Outcomes of First-Year Seminars, a monograph published by the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition and “What Does It Mean to be ‘College-Ready’?”, an article which appears in Connection: The Journal of the New England Board of Higher Education. Laurie, an award winning educator, was recently selected by the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition as a top ten Outstanding First-Year Student Advocate. In 2006, she also received the Learning Assistance Association of New England’s Outstanding Research and Publication Award.You can register online by adding this product to your shopping cart. If you have any questions, please call 303-775-6004 .

Publisher DescriptionThe American Educational Research Association (AERA) is concerned with improving the educational process by encouraging scholarly inquiry related to education and by promoting the dissemination and practical application of research results. AERA is the most prominent international professional organization with the primary goal of advancing educational research and its practical application. Its 20,000 members are educators; administrators; directors of research, testing or evaluation in federal, state and local agencies; counselors; evaluators; graduate students; and behavioral scientists. The broad range of disciplines represented by the membership includes education, psychology, statistics, sociology, history, economics, philosophy, anthropology, and political science. Contact InformationAmerican Educational Research Association1430 K St, NW, Suite 1200Washington, DC 20005Phone: (202) 238-3200 (202) 238-3200 Fax: (202) 238-3250Email: members@aera.net

August 16, 2010ATLANTA -- Seeking to move "beyond near-term funding cycles," leaders of the National Science Foundation briefed sociologists here Sunday about plans to create a strategy to support the social sciences over the next decade.Myron Gutmann, assistant director for the social, behavioral and economic sciences at the NSF, told those gathered for the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association that this is an "unparalleled time" in terms of interest across the sciences in working with social scientists on some of the top issues of the day.

And as a result, he said, it is an appropriate time to think long term for the agency and the social sciences. Gutmann said that the NSF would like to see for the social sciences something similar to a project conducted by the National Research Council every decade: a plan for astronomy and astrophysics research for the next 10 years. (The most recent plan was released on Friday.)While the NSF is best known for its support of work in the physical and computational sciences, it has long been a significant player in the social sciences, with close ties to academe. The agency funds tens of millions of dollars of research a year and supports everything from basic research by senior scholars to dissertation fellowships. Gutmann was named to his position last year, having been a demographic historian previously at the University of Michigan. The NSF is seeking advice on shaping the agenda, but on a relatively tight time frame -- with a request for ideas having gone out late last week, with a deadline of the end of September. Gutmann said he hoped the review would be done by the time officials start shaping the 2013 budget proposal, which is a process that starts next spring.

Gutmann said that the agency wants to rethink three main areas:•Identifying the "big, underlying questions" that deserve more study and support. He acknowledged the difficulty inherent in thinking too far into the future on such matters, since new questions will emerge. But he said that he thought many of these questions "are not so far in outer space that we aren't aware of them now." He cited the demography of aging and of immigration as two such examples of social science topics likely to only get more important and to gain greater relevance in the future.•Defining "capacity" issues. Given that the NSF supports everything from undergraduate education to scholarly research, he said it is time to think about which areas are most in need of which kinds of support that the agency could offer.•Refining "infrastructure" support. For the NSF, social sciences infrastructure consists of numerous large, longitudinal surveys and the databases that result from those studies -- of which most of the prominent ones have received considerable agency support over the years. Gutmann said that he is "very proud" of the NSF's role in building these surveys, and that he wasn't looking to stop support for any of them. But he said that the largest of these projects were now started decades ago, and that he wondered if there were new topics that deserved such support.He stressed, in his remarks and in answers to questions, that the NSF is strongly committed, in its current grant programs and in the new agenda, to seeking out and supporting interdisciplinary projects -- both among the social sciences and in projects linking the social sciences to other sciences. In some respects, this is going on even before the 10-year plan is developed. He said that major new funds would be available next year for environmental research -- including studies that would probably involve social scientists working on the human impact of certain environmental practices.At the same time, he noted that there are obstacles to this approach. At the NSF, he said, there are limited funds. "If you triple the number of senior investigators, you can triple the budget," he said, and that's only rarely possible to do.Gutmann also said he believes that universities remain slow -- despite many statements they make to the contrary -- to truly supporting interdisciplinary work. He said that many graduate programs are not teaching interdisciplinary approaches in graduate programs, and that many universities "are less than perfect" when it comes to rewarding interdisciplinary work in the tenure and promotion process.— Scott Jaschik

Louisiana Senate Bill 863: Prohibits texting and handheld cell phone use for all drivers. This does not include hands free operation of mobile phones and use of two way radios. Primary offence. Fines of $175 plus court costs, and then $500 for any other offense. Primary enforcement will begin Aug 15, 2010. Please aware all drivers and employees whom may be traveling in or thru the State of Louisiana of this new law. SB 137 (Act No. 655) is the text message/cell phone law. It prohibits texting by ALL drivers, and limits the use of cell phones by “novice” drivers (novice driver is a driver that has a Class E learners permit). The novice can use a cell phone/wireless communication device, if it is HANDS-FREE. Fines are $175 (1st offense) and up to $500 for 2nd/all subsequent offenses (if you are involved in an accident and you are deemed to have been in violation of this law, the fines are doubled). Exceptions exist for emergency situations and LEn personnel. This can be used as a primary offense.SB 159 (Act No. 666), prohibits minors (17 and under) from using ANY wireless communication while operating a motor vehicle (this does not include push-to-talk devices, commercial 2-way radios, and CB radios >>> wow, remember those ???). Violations are $100 (1st off), $250 (2nd and subsequent)… doubled in the accident situation. Same exceptions apply. This can be used as a primary offense.SB 342 (Act No. 667), prohibits 1st time license holders from using cells phones for ANY purpose while driving a motor vehicle. Newly licensed individual cannot use a cell phone while driving for 1 year from the date the license is issued (this does not apply to someone that was licensed for more than a year in another state and just obtains a Louisiana license). Violations receive a $100 fine AND/or sentenced to 16 hours of community service work (you can be hit with BOTH). $250 for 2nd & subsequent offense. Fines doubled for accidents. Same exceptions apply. This is only a secondary offence violation. Lastly, the School Bus Driver Law…. HB 402 (Act No. 335) prohibits a School Bus driver from engaging in all calls on a cell phone while driving the bus. There are exceptions for emergencies.

by Toni Coleman, August 16, 2010University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) officials in recent years created a minority mentoring program to connect students of color with business leaders in the community. The university recruited minority staff and students to work in its career center. It hired an adviser to work with minority student groups to ensure campus events reflected their interests.All of these changes came about due to data—survey data that, for instance, revealed minority students were not taking advantage of the career services center.“There were certain sub-populations on campus that felt marginalized,” says Dr. Nathan Lindsay, director of student life assessment at the University of North Carolina Wilmington that has an 11 percent minority undergraduate enrollment. “Students who are Native America and Asian consistently across several different surveys produced lower scores in terms of their satisfaction level with services, in terms of feelings of being included or represented. It gave us greater cause to address those things.”UNCW is one of 1,400 institutions that have participated in the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), the survey instrument that signaled the need for changes in the career services center to better meet minority students’ needs. Administered to first-year and senior students at universities that pay for it, the survey gauges to what extent students are participating in activities known to be effective best educational practices, such as a high level of interaction with faculty.Founded 11 years ago, the NSSE program based at Indiana University has grown in size and influence. Its annual results are widely reported in the media. Researchers have used the data for a variety of studies. Also, it is one of the tools institutions can use as part of the Voluntary System of Accountability, an initiative among public four-year institutions designed to demonstrate transparency and good stewardship founded by the Association of Land-grant and Public Universities and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.“We have two overarching goals,” says NSSE director Alex McCormick. “One of them is to enrich the national conversation about college quality, which has been unreasonably obsessed with reputation and student test scores and pretty much bereft of any discussion about teaching and learning. Unlike other approaches that focus on outcomes, we’re focused on process. We know about what works. We go straight to the students and ask them about the extent to which they are involved in those practices.”“Our other big goal is to use that information and feed it back to institutions in the form of diagnostic information on how they can reform,” McCormick adds. “We’re trying to encourage institutions to try to understand whom their least engaged students are and what we can do to improve their experience.”UNCW’s career services changes provide one of many examples of schools making data-based campus improvements. NSSE has also been involved with the Building Engagement and Attainment for Minority Students, an initiative to help minority-serving institutions use NSSE data and campus assessments to improvements students’ experiences. Jackson State University, a historically Black institution in Mississippi, for example, saw a 46 percent increase in students using tutorial services after it realigned student support services in response to data indicating an underutilization of services by students who really needed them.There are few critics of NSSE, which is regarded by many researchers who study minority student experiences as a useful tool, along with data from the federal government and from UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute, which administers the Cooperative Institutional Research Program’s annual survey of freshmen.“The questions that NSSE asks about the nature of students experiences are very useful for understanding how minority and other students are engaged in college. The questions are well grounded in relevant theory and offer a comprehensive assessment of student engagement,” says Dr. Laura Perna, a professor in the Graduate School of Education at Pennsylvania State University whose research focuses on understanding how to improve college access and success for students from historically underrepresented groups. Although she has not used NSSE data in her research, she notes the numerous studies on minority student success that have relied on it.Those who have concerns about NSSE note its limitations, which include the narrow pool of students surveyed. Surveying seniors, or the “survivors,” means they’ve missed students who have dropped out, students the institutions really need to hear from, wrote Mark Schneider, vice president at the American Institutes for Research, in an op-ed that questioned the use of NSSE data in holding institutions accountable for student success.Still, NSSE is cited frequently as a useful tool for informing minority student success. In addition to looking for differences in the responses of subgroups and the broader student population to questions about various student services, the NSSE survey has questions dealing directly with diversity issues. These include, “In your experience at your institution during the current school year, about how often have you had serious conversations with students or a different race or ethnicity than your own?”Minority Student ExperiencesNSSE findings have been used to compare the experiences of African-American and Hispanic students at minority-serving institutions and their predominantly White counterparts as well as to gauge students’ perceived benefits to interacting across different cultures. The findings provide a starting point, however, on issues that require further study.For instance, using data from the 2003 survey of 147,166 undergraduates, researchers have found that African-American seniors at historically Black institutions were more likely to report participation in active and collaborative learning environments and greater student-faculty interaction than Black students at PWIs. However, Hispanic students report no greater advantage attending a Hispanic-serving institution than a PWI. The scores for Hispanic seniors at HSIs on those measures were similar to Hispanic seniors at PWIs.“We found that African-American students at HBCUs were more engaged and gained more from their experiences compared to African-Americans at predominantly White institutions. These are cultures that have been built to encourage good academics among African-American students. It’s generally a faculty and an administration that believe in the education of those students, and they’re working hard to make it the best it can be,” says Thomas Nelson Laird, co-author of the study and an assistant professor of higher education at Indiana University.HSIs, however, don’t have the long history and mission of HBCUs, which may account for the differences in Hispanic student responses, says Nelson Laird. “They weren’t generally founded to be Hispanic serving; they’ve become Hispanic-serving over time. They don’t have a faculty or administration that has fully taken on that mission.”In another study, Nelson Laird and colleagues found that students generally viewed their educational environment more positively the more they interacted across differences, including racial, political and socioeconomic differences.“The strength of that relationship depends on your race and ethnicity,” Nelson Laird says. “African-American students see the environment more positively the more they interact across differences. It’s positive for all students but more positive for some and less positive for others.”“Should it be different for these different groups? Institutions need to wrestle with that. The really important message that’s embedded here is that a lot of institutions have bought into the idea that diversity is important for their campus,” Nelson Laird says. “This message is we can’t do that blindly. We can’t go in and pick these things and believe that it’s going to be a universal benefit for everybody in the exact same way. It’s going to have a different effect on different students.”The Accountability QuestionDr. Mitchell Chang, a professor of higher educational and organizational change at the University of California, Los Angeles, says he holds NSSE in high regard but notes there is some redundancy in what NSSE and the much older CIRP assesses. In many ways, they’re competing with each other for institutional participation as student survey fatigue rises.Still, he says that NSEE is valuable to institutions in responding to minority students’ needs and that surveys like NSSE and CIRP are a better barometer of institutional performance than traditional measures.Using NSSE as an accountability measure “is a very good move because without those surveys you’re looking at institutional level data, such as retention rates and loan default and transfer rates, but you don’t get a good sense of how students have benefited from being on those campuses over time, the added value of higher education,” Chang says.At UNCW, Lindsay says it’s important for institutions to use NSSE in combination with other assessments. Faculty may debunk NSSE results on a particular measure as invalid or question how the data can be useful, Lindsay says, but he always makes sure the results are corroborated by another source. “We’re not just seeing it in NSSE; we’re seeing it in other instruments. It’s a lot more powerful,” Lindsay says. McCormick says it’s fair for institutions to use NSSE data to hold themselves accountable, but there are limits.“We’re the first to say it’s no silver bullet. Just signing up for NSSE in and of itself is not going to do anything. The rubber hits the road when the institutions grapple with the results and start to think about what kinds of things we provide to our students,” McCormick says. “It would be unfortunate if NSSE results alone are used to reward or punish institutions. I do worry about NSSE becoming a high-stakes test.”

Dear Scholar-Athletes:I hope that you had a great summer and you are ready to being the new school year with focus and determination. In order to help you get off to a great start, we have planned our annual Scholar-Athlete Leadership Training (S. A. L. T.) to be held on Saturday, August 28, 2010from 8 am to 5 pm. This training is mandatory for all scholar-athletes.

Our special guest this year is Felicia Hall Allen and Associates. I have attached a copy of her bio for your information. Ms. Hall will lead us through team building exercises that will prepare us to meet all of our goals in the classroom and in competition. You will hear more details in the next week from your coaches. I have purchased some really nice gifts for you this year! I am anticipating a successful year.

August 17, 2010 by Jamaal Abdul-AlimDespite the occasional success in closing the achievement gap, America’s K-12 educational system does a wholly inadequate job of educating Black males, as evidenced in large disparities in the graduation rate between Black males and their White counterparts.So says a new report being released today from the Cambridge, Mass.-based Schott Foundation for Public Education.“The harsh reality is that systemically most states and too many districts don’t provide the necessary, targeted resources or supports for all students’ educational success,” Schott Foundation president John H. Jackson states in the report, titled Yes We Can: The Schott 50 State Report on Public Education and Black Males. “We have too often settled for the sweet taste of minor success over stomaching the bitter taste of the reality that without systemic reform we are winning some battles, but largely still losing the war.”The report singled out New Jersey as the only state with a significant Black male population with a higher than 65 percent high school graduation rate and attributed this to the greater per pupil spending and instructional time that came about as a result of the Abbot v. Burke lawsuit filed by the Education Law Center. The 1981 lawsuit claimed the state had failed to meet its constitutional obligation to provide a “thorough and efficient” education to students in poor, urban school districts.The Schott report singled out six states—New York, Nebraska, Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana—as having the worst graduation outcomes based on a mathematical formula known as the Schott Education Inequity Index, which ranks states by subtracting the graduation rate among Black males from 100 percent, then adding that amount to the difference, or the “gap,” in graduation rates between Black males and White males.The Schott report, including its remedies and overall framework, drew varying degrees of both criticism and praise from education experts and commentators familiar with the Schott approach.Ellen Winn, director of the Education Equality Project, says she keeps the annually-released Schott report on Black males on her desk because of its value as a resource tool for those concerned with closing the achievement gap.“They are telling the honest story about what’s going on with African-American boys in our country, which is horrendous,” Winn said. “Too often that tragic story can get hidden.”However, Janks Morton, a Washington, D.C.-based author, filmmaker whose work deals primarily with Black men and boys in the United States, criticized the report for its emphasis on Black educational deficits.Morton is known for his public repudiation of the widespread belief that there are more Black men in prison than in college, a claim that gets repeated in the latest Schott report, which states “the rate at which Black males are being pushed out of school and into the pipeline to prison far exceeds the rate at which they are graduating and reaching high levels of academic achievement.”“They really uplift and expose the less desirable portions of the negative statistics about Black boys,” said Morton, who has studied previous Schott reports on public education and Black males. “That garners a lot of attention and support.”Morton said the low graduation rates among Black males can be complicated by other factors, such as Black single parents moving out of school districts and thus making it appear as if their child has dropped out. He also said many Black male students ultimately graduate from high school but not in the conventional manner or timeframe. Morton said by emphasizing the educational deficits of Black males, the Schott Foundation appeals to a certain ethos in American culture in which privileged individuals like to see themselves as heroic rescuers of the less fortunate.Schott Foundation president John H. Jackson said the report is meant to illustrate how America’s school system is systematically disenfranchising Black males.“Whenever you see a trend that is identifiable by race and gender, then we have to ask questions around the systemic challenges,” Jackson said. “So the fact that you see 46 out of 50 states, you see the Black male at the bottom of graduation indicators, seems to indicate to me beyond just personal drive.”“There’s a need for resources by which this population can be successful,” Jackson continued. “If it’s just a matter of personal drive, we shouldn’t be able to identify by race or ethnicity who has more or less.”However, Morton says one factor that explains racial disparities in educational achievement is whether children are being raised in single- or two-parent households. According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids County Data Center, 65 percent of Black children are being raised in single-parent households versus 23 percent of White children.“Basically, those (children) from two-parent homes outperform those from single-parent homes, hands down,” Morton said.Morton also took exception to the report’s recommendation for greater resources to be invested in public education as a means of narrowing the achievement gap.“The highest per capita expenditures in this country are African-American urban districts,” Morton said, using D.C.’s public school system as an example where poor outcomes for Black students persist despite the fact that it has one of the highest rates of per pupil spending in the country--$16,353 in fiscal 2008, second only to New Jersey, which spent $17,620 the same year, and far beyond the average $10,978 that high-poverty urban districts spent in the 2006-2007 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.“They’re getting money,” Morton said. “The problem is that the bureaucracy, teachers unions and other functions of that system do not allow for the trickle down that it’s intended for, and that’s the students.”Winn, of the Education Equality Project, agreed that greater investments don’t necessarily lead to better outcomes.“Unfortunately, that’s not really the case,” Winn said.

http://www.magnapubs.com/catalog/mentor-4-pack-faculty-orientation/?track=4packNew Faculty Orientation ChecklistReview handbookDiscuss department goalsEstablish classroom policies & proceduresExplain syllabus policyShow New Faculty Orientation ProgramsSpecial Offer:Just in time for the new school year, we've put together a special bundle featuring four 20 Minute Mentor programs that will help new instructors succeed right from the start. Each program features a 20-minute video presentation, plus 3 to 8 pages of supplemental materials, a copy of the PowerPoint presentation and the transcript. It’s all delivered in a convenient CD package so that it can be viewed during your next faculty orientation or departmental meeting.No faculty orientation meeting is complete without Magna's 20 Minute Mentor programs. Each 20 Minute Mentor provides practical advice for tackling some of the trickiest classroom issues.The New Faculty Orientation 4-pack includes:• How Should I Respond to Wrong (or Not Very Good) Answers? presented by Maryellen Weimer, Ph.D.• How Do I Discuss Academic Integrity During the First Class? presented by Gary Pavela• How Can I Clarify Fuzzy Learning Goals? presented by Linda Suskie• What if a Student Asks a Question I Can’t Answer? presented by Therese Huston, Ph.D.Get all four of these 20 Minute Mentor programs for only $299! That’s a savings of $100 if you purchased the programs separately. This offer is only good through September 30, 2010 so order today!

Magna Publications: New programs to round out your faculty orientation

It is critical to spend time training your students how to properly use the systems you’ve adopted into your teaching repertoire. A common fallacy is to believe that because students today are “digital natives”—meaning that they grew up with technology—they are good at using any technology. I’ve found that students’ understanding of technology is narrow and deep. They are very adept at text messaging and navigating Facebook, but they are not versed in using blogs, wikis, document sharing systems, and the like.

Assuming that your students will pick up a new technology on their own is a recipe for disaster. You must also be explicit about how you want them to use these systems to avoid them going off in the wrong direction.

Training your students in the use of technology need not be time consuming. The secret is to only do it once—it becomes time consuming when you need to repeat the training over and over.

You can take time in class to demonstrate how to use a system, but what about the students who miss class that day, or simply forget parts of the presentation? You can write out the steps for an online class, but seeing how something is done is far more effective in learning a process than reading about it.

Happily, it is very easy to make a screencast that walks people through the process and allows them to view it as often as they need. I’ve found that it takes far less time to make a screencast of a process than to write out the directions. I’ve also found that I get far fewer questions about a process with a screencast than written directions.I make screencasts to explain nearly any task to students or colleagues. For instance, if I make a spreadsheet for my boss or others, I’ll accompany it by a two or three minute screencast pointing out which cells contain which information. This saves a lot of time explaining things later. I also make screencasts showing students how to post to the class blog and wiki, and allow them to view them on their own.Screencasting only requires a microphone, which are built into some laptops, and if not can be purchased for around $30. The system will record your mouse movements and everything you do on the screen while you describe the process. There are numerous free and easy to use systems, and sites to post the results for your audience to watch or download at their leisure. Once you start screencasting, you won’t want to stop. Have fun!FeedbackAs usual, I welcome your comments, criticisms, and cries of outrage in the comments section of this blog.Links to Free Screencasting Software for TeachersJing ( http://www.jingproject.com ): An excellent system from TechSmith which allows users to make five-minute screencaptures and either download the videos or post them to screencast.com. ScreenJelly ( http://www.screenjelly.com/ ): Allows for 3 minute videos that can be shared by email or Twitter.ScreenR ( http://screenr.com/ ): Make screencasts without downloading any software.Screencast-O-Matic ( http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/ ): Allows for up to 15 minute screencasts that are hosted on the site or uploaded to YouTube.John Orlando, PhD, is the program director for the online Master of Science in Business Continuity Management and Master of Science in Information Assurance programs at Norwich University. John develops faculty training in online education and is available for consulting at jorlando@norwich.edu.Permalink: http://www.facultyfocus.com?p=14790

Each year U.S. News & World Report ranks the nation’s colleges and universities primarily for academic quality. The top tier includes 197 schools. A separate listing ranks historically black colleges and universities. The rankings of the universities in Louisiana and the Southeastern Conference are:

TOP TIER UNIVERSITIES

1. Harvard University.

2. Princeton University.

3. Yale University.

4. Columbia University.

17. Vanderbilt University.

51. Tulane University.

53. University of Florida.

56. University of Georgia.

79. University of Alabama.

85. Auburn University.

104. University of Tennessee.

111. University of South Carolina.

124. LSU
129. University of Kentucky.

132. University of Arkansas.

143. University of Mississippi.

151. Mississippi State University.

SECOND TIER

Louisiana Tech University.

University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

University of New Orleans.

TOP BLACK COLLEGES

6. Xavier University.

9. Dillard University.

34. Southern University.

34. Grambling State University.

SECOND TIER BLACK SCHOOLS

Southern University at New Orleans.

Source: U.S. News & World Report

2010 U.S. News & World Report Ranks the Nation’s Colleges and Universities

The International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (ISSN 1812-9129) provides a forum for higher education faculty, staff, administrators, researchers, and students who are interested in improving post-secondary instruction. The IJTLHE provides broad coverage of higher education pedagogy and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) across diverse content areas, educational institutions, and levels of instructional expertise. The specific emphasis of IJTLHE is the dissemination of knowledge for improving higher education pedagogy. Electronic distribution of IJTLHE maximizes global availability.

All manuscripts submitted to the IJTLHE should be in accordance with the journal’s purpose - to encourage the study, development, application, and evaluation of higher education pedagogy. All manuscripts are refereed (blind) using a peer-review process involving at least two reviewers. The review process typically takes approximately three months.

Finally, the IJTLHE is a publication of the International Society for Exploring Teaching and Learning (ISETL). The mission of ISETL is to encourage the study of instruction and principles of learning in order to implement practical, effective methods of teaching and learning; promote the application, development, and evaluation of such methods; and foster the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning among practicing post-secondary educators.

International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (IJTLHE)

ITHAKA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping the academic community take full advantage of rapidly advancing information and networking technologies. We serve scholars, researchers and students by providing the content, tools, and services needed to preserve the scholarly record and to advance research and teaching in sustainable ways. We are committed to working in collaboration with other organizations to maximize benefits to our stakeholders.

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Welcome to the Dillard University Center for Teaching, Learning and Academic Technology Blog!

The Dillard University Center for Teaching, Learning and Academic Technology (DUCTLAT) http://www.ductlat.blogspot.com/ is essential in helping faculty effectively manage technology on and off campus. An important aspect of this initiative is achieved by bringing groups of faculty members together to learn the technology necessary to develop electronic resources for their courses and themselves, while planning and beginning the development of shared curricular materials. Cultivating faculty success at all levels reinforces the University's commitment to build premier faculty learning communities. All faculty, deans and academic administrators play a critical role in creating competitive and productive academic units in which expectations for faculty performance are clearly articulated and professional achievements are recognized and rewarded.